16th, P.M.--I have been thinking of the story of the old cashier these
two days; it came so opportunely upon the reflections my dream had
suggested to me.

Have I not an important lesson to learn from all this?

If our sensations have an incontestable influence upon our judgments,
how comes it that we are so little careful of those things which awaken
or modify these sensations? The external world is always reflected in us
as in a mirror, and fills our minds with pictures which, unconsciously to
ourselves, become the germs of our opinions and of our rules of conduct.
All the objects which surround us are then, in reality, so many talismans
whence good and evil influences are emitted, and it is for us to choose
them wisely, so as to create a healthy atmosphere for our minds.

Feeling convinced of this truth, I set about making a survey of my attic.

The first object on which my eyes rest is an old map of the history of
the principal monastery in my native province. I had unrolled it with
much satisfaction, and placed it on the most conspicuous part of the
wall. Why had I given it this place? Ought this sheet of old worm-eaten
parchment to be of so much value to me, who am neither an antiquary nor a
scholar? Is not its real importance in my sight that one of the abbots
who founded it bore my name, and that I shall, perchance, be able to make
myself a genealogical tree of it for the edification of my visitors?
While writing this, I feel my own blushes. Come, down with the map!
let us banish it into my deepest drawer.

As I passed my glass, I perceived several visiting cards complacently
displayed in the frame. By what chance is it that there are only names